but everything looks perfect from far away
by jlangblues
Summary: And Rachel's found, over the past year or so, that everything is infinitely better when she's with him. (Canon drabbles. Finn x Rachel.)
1. blueberries

**A/N**: The way I work through my emotions, is through writing. This will just be a collection of canon/semi-canon drabbles.

* * *

It's wintertime, cold, the kind that bites at your fingertips and burrows its way deep beneath your skin. Pulling at her hat, trying to cover her ears, Rachel laughs as the snow sticks and clings to her coat, laughs as she sticks and clings to Finn. They're walking to school today, because Finn's truck broke down last night and the idea of riding the school bus is less than appealing.

It's not so bad, though. It's cold, and the weather slightly less than ideal, but she's with Finn. And Rachel's found, over the past year or so, that everything is infinitely better when she's with him.

He's wearing his letterman jacket, and Rachel pulls at it, pulls him closer to her. "You're going to freeze, Finn Hudson," she tells him, trying to sound admonishing. Because no matter how ridiculously cute he looks in that thing, it doesn't change the fact that it's certainly not made for this time of the year.

He's probably not even wearing an undershirt or any layers, and now, in the back of her mind that's reserved for the absolute _most_ paranoid of her thoughts, she's wondering just how concerned she should be about hypothermia.

Finn blushes, tells her that he left his good winter coat at his grandma's last weekend. "I didn't think you'd notice," he says, and he's sort of mumbling now, like he always does when he's trying to get her to drop the subject.

She sighs, and he says, "I'm not even cold, Rach. I promise."

Rachel raises an eyebrow at him, and he rolls his eyes a little. "Not even _super_ cold," he amends, which she appreciates, because lying, even about the smallest, tiniest thing, has never boded well for their relationship.

He looks down at her, smiles, pulls at the pom that rests on the top of her hat. "You look like you're made for the snow, though," he tells her, resting his hand on top of her head for a moment, before intertwining their fingers again.

He's wearing the gloves she made him for Christmas, the soft wool ones that are bright green and blue. It's funny – because Finn has, honestly, the largest hands out of anyone she knows. And gloves never fit him; he always used to complain about how unfair it was that everyone else got to wear gloves and mittens, but his ginormous hands never managed to fit into them quite right.

(His words – not hers, of course, because Finn's hands aren't ginormous. They're perfect; just, _perhaps_, a little larger than most.)

Anyway, she spent forever making those gloves, waking up early before her morning runs to make sure that she'd get them done in time. And now, whenever she sees him wearing them – is it corny, to say that it always makes her love him just a little bit more?

She smiles up at him, brushes her thumb over his, as the big, fluffy flakes drop onto her cheeks. He leans down, kisses them off, softly, before dropping his mouth down to meet hers.

"Your breath smells like blueberries," she says, and when he pulls away and smiles at her, he tells her that he ate the blueberry bread she baked him yesterday for breakfast.

It's cold out. And it's so terribly cliché to say, but her heart feels very, very warm.


	2. the one with the shoes

**A/N**: This drabble is set sometime during senior year. (And, off-topic, but thank you for the messages/kind words, both here and through tumblr. It's been truly appreciated.)

* * *

She tells him that she needs to buy a new pair of shoes.

"My penny loafers have scuff marks on them," she says, annoyed, standing up on her tip toes for emphasis. "See?"

She points dramatically at the tip of the shoe, and Finn looks down at their feet. He squints, too, pretends that he can't see her feet from so far away.

(Their height difference is something that he'll always find funny, she's found. Sometimes, when they're hugging, he'll just rest his chin right on top of her head; or other times, he'll pretend that she's so close to the ground that he can't even see her. "Rach? Rachel – babe, where'd you go?"

_So_ ridiculous.)

He peers down at her feet for another few seconds, then nods slowly. "Yeah. I think if I got like, a microscope thing out, I could see a scuff."

She rolls her eyes, knocks her hip against his. "No need to mock me," she says, pouting, and he just lets out a laugh, leans down so he can give her a kiss on the cheek.

His fingers dig into her hips, just a little, and she feels that familiar rush that she always does whenever he touches her. They've been together for a while now, like, really together, no breaks or silly fights – and it's kind of amazing to realize that she doesn't think she'll ever get used to him touching her, even in passing.

She tells him she loves him, and then demands that he drive her to the mall. "Maybe you can't see that these shoes are worn out, but I can, and it's going to bother me until I get a new pair."

Finn nods, acquiesces, tells her that they can swing by the stores quick before heading over to Puck's. They're having some sort of gaming marathon tonight, and while Rachel wasn't explicitly invited – she's Finn's girlfriend. So that means, in her mind at least, that she has an automatic invite to wherever Finn goes.

Not that she's interested in COD, however. She'll most likely spend the evening baking cookies and talking about musicals with Puck's little sister. She perks up a little at that thought, because maybe she can convince Finn to stop at the grocery store before heading over to Puck's.

(Extra chocolate chips in cookies never hurt anyone, alright?)

When they get to the mall, it's starting to rain a little, and without even having to ask, Rachel knows that Finn doesn't have an umbrella in the car. Even though, over the course of their relationship, Rachel has bought him approximately five umbrellas that she specifically told him should stay in the car.

Rachel's still not entirely sure why Finn thinks it's a good idea to use these emergency umbrellas for reenacting Star Wars with Sam. But they've had that conversation (argument) one too many times before, and she's not interested in hearing about spontaneous Han Solo moments right now.

The _shoes_ – she's on a mission right now, and she'll deal with hearing about the excuses about the umbrella later.

Finn looks at her for a moment, all guilty and chagrined, before reaching back and grabbing his windbreaker from the back seat. He tosses it into her lap, smiles triumphantly at her like he's expecting a round of applause.

She stares at the windbreaker for a second, before looking back over at him, eyebrows raised.

He sighs, leans over and picks up the coat. And gently, so that he doesn't crush her top bun or accidentally smudge her makeup, he drapes the coat over the top of her head. "For your hair, right?" he says. "It looks cute today."

Rachel is positive that she looks like an absolute psycho walking into the mall, but she doesn't even care.

And she buys a pair of shoes that have the smallest, slightest heel, and when she tries them on, Finn grins at her.

"I can _almost_ see your face clearly now," he says, laughing, and he presses his lips against hers.


	3. the one where finn's bored

**A/N**: This is set sometime senior year. Thanks, again, for all the reviews and kind words. You guys are the best! I'm planning on writing something a bit more substantial soon.

* * *

He tells her he's bored as shit right now, and she glares at him with these evil, crazy eyes that look like they belong on someone else. So then he says that he's bored as poop, but she groans and says that switching out one vulgar word for another doesn't make the sentence any better.

Shit isn't that vulgar of a word and he's pretty sure that technically, poop isn't either, and he opens his mouth to say something –

But she just shakes her head, once, with this finality about it that – yeah. He gives up. Honestly, sometimes it's better to let things go than to try to argue with her. She was on the debate team freshman and sophomore year,s and sometimes he thinks that she forgets that life isn't an ongoing tug of war thing.

Whatever. He's still bored and he sighs loudly so that she gets the point.

She pointedly tries to ignore him for a few minutes, but Finn can be persistent when he wants to be, so he sighs again, and she looks up at him, clearly exasperated.

"Yes?" she asks, putting her scrapbook down. "What can I do for you?"

He wants to say something kind of dirty but she _totally_ wouldn't go for that right now, like, at all, so he lets it slide.

(Even though she is wearing that sundress that she knows drives him crazy.)

"Let's go to the park," he says, flopping over onto his stomach. He's been lying on her bed for what seems like forever and he's seriously going stir crazy. She'd promised him that she was almost done working on her scrapbook, but that was forty five minutes ago.

And she just pulled out the hot glue gun, so Finn's definitely aware that he has about two minutes to pull her out of this crafting session before he's lost her to the dark side.

The dark side, of course, being two hours of her picking out what fabrics to glue on which page, and what polka dots go best with each picture, and yada yada, Hobby Lobby, cats, glitter, whatever.

It's basically something akin to torture, and even though Finn loves Rachel, loves her with his entire heart, he seriously can't do this right now.

"It's super nice outside, Rach," he says, trying to get her into the idea. "We could go for a run, or we could go feed the ducks or something."

Rachel frowns, pressing a couple sequins onto a page. "We got yelled at the last time, remember? That lady said we were going to make the ducks obese."

(So, yeah, they got a little over enthusiastic about feeding the ducks. It's not like they were purposely _trying_ to overfeed them.)

Finn says, "But a run? We haven't gone on a run together in years."

Lies. They went last week, but whatever, that was a long time ago and Finn _knows_ that Rachel loves running with him. Mainly, even though she'd never admit to this, because he's always willing to run ahead of her to make sure that there's no dog shit or road kill coming up.

Rachel looks up at him, frowns. "Are you that bored?"

She sounds a little offended, and adds on, "I'm working on a scrapbook about _us_, Finn Hudson." She holds up the book for emphasis, and yeah, it's not as creepy as the cat calendars she made sophomore year, but – still.

He pouts. And he starts to flop around all crazy like on the bed, as if he's being electrocuted or something.

Rachel's not the only dramatic one in this relationship.

She laughs, pretending to be annoyed, and she leans over and whacks him on the shoulder lightly before kissing him on the cheek.

"Fine, _fine_, I'll work on this later," she tells him, giving him another kiss. She runs her hand over the back of his neck, and he smiles gratefully at her, wrapping an arm around her waist.

"Run?" Finn asks, and she shakes her head.

"Ducks."

He looks at her, reproachfully, and she tells him, "We just won't bring five loaves of bread this time."


End file.
